Basic Genre Inspirations

 AS Level Media Studies Final Project

January 7th, 2026, Post 2

A deeper dive into the dystopian genre:

       A dystopia is a fictional world in which everything within that world is considerably terrible in that society. Often, the dystopian society is under tyrannical and authoritarian rule. In literature, certain books such as '1984,' 'The Handmaid's Tale,' and 'Brave New World' were very impactful in the genre of dystopia. Each of them describe different futures, with each leading authoritative rule controlling society using different means. Oftentimes, dystopian fictions and apocalyptic fiction go hand-in-hand with each other, hence why this blog post will also analyze the fictional apocalyptic genre.

(This is a painting titled 'Apocalypse' by Albert Goodwin. The scene is of a large scale wildfire or other climate event destroying a forest. This idea of large events destroying nature and/or man-made items is heavily prevelent throughout the literary subgenre.)

A deeper dive into apocalyptic fiction:

      Apocalyptic fiction often has a large scale event that harms or completely destroys human society. These events often criticize trends that are prevalent through society at the time of its writing, making it a subgenera that is tied to the time written, in a way. These events can be caused by a multitude of reasons, often relating to mankind's arrogance in relation towards uncontrollable things. Think of 'Terminator,' in which, by making artificial intelligence strong and all powerful, dooms mankind. A work can also be considered apocalyptic due to a gradual event that, while may not destroy mankind, certainly makes their living condition worse or unlivable. The ladder part of apocalyptic fiction is often tied to dystopian fiction, hence why these two are in the same blog post.

How this relates towards my project:

      These subgenres, and therefore the works included in them, are going to heavily inspire the direction in which my project takes. As stated before, my project will take place in a dystopian society in which the populous is tricked into loving their oppressors. This 'theme' is heavily tied to dystopian fiction.